People online do not want to get sold

"People online do not want to get sold—a fact documented in a recent study conducted by John Morkes and Jakob Nielsen. The Internet population goes online to find information, Morkes and Nielsen found."

If we accept this premise, then even the most blatantly commercial site managers need to review their copy, and honestly determine if visitors get value when they click through. As much as we may want to shout "Buy my stuff!!!", or say "We are the greatest!!!" the truth is, these messages are just not effective.

Maria advises web marketers to ". . . wrap your advertising message within the soft cushions of an informative editorial piece of interest to your target audience." The key words in her message are "informative," "of interest" and "target audience," which imply, in turn, that you really have something to say, that you can say it in an interesting and engaging way and that you actually know who you should be speaking to.

Yeah, it's basic. But how often, in the pressure-cooker environment of sales, do we forget that:

The sales cycle is not the buying cycle,

Potential customers do not share our urgency, and that

We cannot annoy someone into liking us.

Take a moment. Read the article. What she has to say is worth repeating.

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Wish We'd Said It First

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.